Kona - October 30, 2013

Elly's bug from yesterday, contrary to our hope that it'd dissipate quickly, took a more solid foothold today. Elly's really bad about drinking water at the best of times, and with the tap water here tasting a bit off she's even less likely. So in an effort to drink more fluids she took her barely-dented camelbak pouch filled with store-bought filtered water to bed with her last night and snuggled it like a teddy bear, periodically nursing from it... very much unlike a teddy bear. However, she didn't show any improvement upon waking up, so we decided today we'd take it easy.

To start things off we had cereal for breakfast and caught up on internet comics and such. Nothing really to report there. In fact, we have so little to report, that nothing at all happened between breakfast and when we started getting hungry for lunch. We consulted our guidebook and decided on Rapanui Island Cafe. Apparently they have really good curry. We drove most of the way, found some rare free parking on the street and opted to walk the rest of the way. When we got there, however, it was closed. Lunch ended at 2, and dinner didn't start until 5 (another hour away). So... No curry for us. We walked a while, bought some post cards along the way, and eventually settled on The Fish Hopper as a spontaneous alternative lunch site. This turned out to be a really good choice. Elly had the seafood pasta Monterey, and I had the fish trio. Oh man. So freaking delicious. I also had a cocktail called "Bright and Shiny": gin and ginger beer. This is a variant on the rum drink "Dark and Stormy." I think this might be my new favorite cocktail. Though, that may well be because a cocktail at The Fish Hopper is served in a pint glass. Yowza.

After lunch we had a leisurely stroll back to the car, stopping in some shops along the way looking for possible gifts. There is a coffee shop we're probably going to return to for some Kona coffee. We also stopped for some shaved ice. I had lime, coconut, guava and Elly had lychee, passion fruit, pineapple. We also stopped at an open-air produce market and bought some passion fruit, and some supplies for dinner that night. We took a short drive out to Safeway and KTA and bought more diner supplies.

Nothing except shopping happened between lunch and dinner. I said we were taking it easy, right? Yeah. We were taking it really easy.

Dinner was fantastic! We had a grass-fed, Hawaiian beef steak with a cabernet garlic reduction, and a pineapple macadamia pilaf. The steak may well be the most flavorful I've ever had, and the pilaf is definitely going to become a regular dinner recipe at home.

We capped things off some dessert and another episode of The Fringe watched in bed.

Ah, vacation! Hopefully Elly is feeling better tomorrow, I'd hate to have to have such a laid-back, relaxing day again! That would just about be the worst thing ever!

Photos
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/105719328153023565846/albums/5940824836799143281